The postdoctoral fellows at the Centre for Sustainable Curating in the Department of Visual Arts in collaboration with the Theatre Studies at Western program invite you to join us in a durational reading of the executive summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report (TRC), part of an initiative by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.
CATR organizers write:
“In the wake of the horrific revelations of unmarked grave sites, and with more still likely to emerge, we feel that it is necessary that we read the TRC together. We have also heard the call from many Indigenous groups, including Native Earth Performing Arts, for white/non-Indigenous/settler Canadians to read the TRC.
By committing to reading the TRC (Executive Summary) over a series of weeks this Fall, we seek to deepen our understanding of how the residential school system perpetuated the genocide of Indigenous peoples across Canada. In this, we draw inspiration from projects such as the TRC Reading Challenge and Theatre Passe Muraille’s reading of the TRC this summer. By joining together as a community of theatre educators and students, we hope that the shared experience of reading aloud and reflecting on the knowledge shared in the report will give us a strong base of understanding to respectfully work together in the future.”
We invite the Western University community (and anyone else who would like to participate) to join us on Zoom every Wednesday from 11am-12pm EDT/EST beginning on 29 September 2021 to read the document out loud together until completion.
Sign up below to receive the meeting link:
(or contact us at: sustainablecurating (at) gmail (dot) com)
The reading sessions will unfold as follows: first we will spend a few minutes deciding who would like to read and for how long. One person will read at a time, then hand the reading over to the next person. After we have read for about 40-45 minutes, we will take 15 more minutes to do some individual journaling, reflecting, and thinking on our own. You can have your audio and video on or off for this, and you do not have to share what you have written with the group.
If you are unable to join us (or in addition to participating) please consider donating to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.